Competent authority
The Autoritatea Aeronautică Civilă Română (AACR) is the authority for uncrewed aircraft.
Registration
Registration covers the operator, not each aircraft: a single code covers all your drones at no extra cost. It is applied for online on the AACR platform, and the code received is displayed visibly on the aircraft.
⚠️ It is paid and renewed every year, in the order of twenty euros. Romania is, with Sweden, one of two states in this series billing annually: an operator arriving from a country where registration lasts five years does not think about the expiry date.
Remote pilot certification
The remote pilot sits the A1/A3 competency certificate, and an additional certificate for subcategory A2. Exams are taken online for around ten euros each, with three re-sits available.
Operating categories
Open, Specific and Certified, under Regulation (EU) 2019/947. A ceiling of 120 m above ground in the Open category, subject to local restrictions.
Airspace and official resources
The AACR publishes the geographical zones. ⚠️ A remote pilot certificate grants no right to fly at a given place: legality depends on the zone and the type of operation, never on the qualification alone. The AACR takes care to say so, which suggests the confusion is common.
National specifics
Risk class marking is required. Aircraft built for the Open category carry a class from C0 to C4, and 2026 put the emphasis on that marking as much as on remote identification and registration.
The regime has been stable since early 2024. A guide older than that date describes a former state; a later one remains valid, which is not the case everywhere in this series.